adding more to internship lessons

2024/intern-lessons.html

@@ -83,22 +83,22 @@ <h1>Internship Lessons</h1>
             </ul>
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         <h2>some lessons from my internships</h2>
-<p>note: i have never done a swe internship</p>
+<p>these are some things i found useful through my internships and are probably good guidelines for anyone doing one.</p>
 <hr>
 <ol>
 <li>
 <p><strong>document, document, document</strong></p>
 <ul>
-<li>i made day to day logs where i could dump notes from the day, which included things like:<ul>
-<li>running log of what i accomplished / meetings i went to (with meeting notes)</li>
+<li>every day, i made a page to dump notes, which included things like:<ul>
+<li>running log of what i accomplished / meetings i went to (+ meeting notes)</li>
 <li>anything i needed to copy paste (eg: list of server names)</li>
 <li>notes on how to do something (eg: how to spin up a new server)</li>
-<li>thoughts on how to accomplish something (eg: to build this pipeline, i need x to connect to y server and send data to z)</li>
+<li>musings on potential ways to accomplish something (eg: to build this pipeline, i could use x to connect to y server and send data to z)</li>
 <li>section for jotting down what you need to do the next day / future goals</li>
-<li>this is very helpful for final presentations / project report</li>
+<li>these logs are very helpful for your final presentation / project report</li>
 </ul>
 </li>
-<li>i also had pages for specific tools i'd be working with a lot to note down useful commands<ul>
+<li>i also had pages for specific tools/languages so i could note down useful commands<ul>
 <li>eg: i made a page with useful clickhouse queries and docs i found myself referencing a lot</li>
 </ul>
 </li>
@@ -107,24 +107,30 @@ <h2>some lessons from my internships</h2>
 <li>
 <p><strong>set up expectations / goals and project timelines asap</strong></p>
 <ul>
-<li>understand why your project(s) is important; why / how is your project providing value? can you measure that? what does success look like?</li>
-<li>find people that are actually affected by it and talk to them (and follow up on their feedback!)</li>
-<li>if you're struggling, try to set up a more granular timeline and ask what your mentor thinks to see if you're on the right track</li>
+<li>understand why your project(s) is important<ul>
+<li>why / how is your project providing value? can you measure that? what does success look like?</li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li>find people that will benefit or have to change their workflow because of your project and talk to them (and follow up on their feedback!)</li>
+<li>if you're struggling, set up a more granular timeline and ask what your mentor thinks to see if you're on the right track</li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 <li>
 <p><strong>talk to people! set up coffee chats with anyone doing anything you find interesting</strong></p>
 <ul>
-<li>your manager / team members will help you find people to talk to if you aren't sure who, given a topic / area you want chat about</li>
+<li>given a topic / area you want chat about, your manager / team members will help you find people to talk to if you aren't sure who</li>
 <li>come with a list of questions you want to talk about; here's <a class="blue-link" href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WzSHwv_hTlsfgAC48OTBDUfOw5NFwRwygPLtYjf2DY4/">my list</a> for coffee chats</li>
 <li>similarly, if you hear about interesting projects during stand up, you can set up a quick meeting with your team member and have them run through it with you </li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 <li>
-<p><strong>have nice commits, code, and readme</strong></p>
+<p><strong>have understandable commits, code, and readme</strong></p>
 <ul>
 <li>people are looking at them and judging you based on it because these are the main things you are there to create</li>
-<li>might be worth looking at <a class="blue-link" href="https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/">conventional commits</a> or asking how your mentor wants commits and comments to look like</li>
+<li>ask your mentor about how they style commits and comments<ul>
+<li>might be worth looking at <a class="blue-link" href="https://www.conventionalcommits.org/en/v1.0.0/">conventional commits</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
 <li>make everything you create as user friendly as possible<ul>
 <li>note down how to run your code, potential failures and how to remedy them</li>
 <li>you will not be there to explain how anything works in three months</li>
@@ -133,17 +139,28 @@ <h2>some lessons from my internships</h2>
 </ul>
 </li>
 <li>
-<p><strong>if you find something annoying, see if you can quickly automate it</strong></p>
+<p><strong>read about the tools you're going to be using</strong></p>
 <ul>
-<li>bash is your friend</li>
-<li>if you can't do it quickly, ask your mentor if it's worthwhile to automate it so other people can use your script</li>
+<li>if you're not sure where to find the best resources, ask for reading material and internal docs about tools and libraries</li>
+<li>listen to talks about similar projects in other companies or how your team functions in other companies</li>
+<li>do not spend too much time rabbit holing into tools or the codebase at the expense of doing things </li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 <li>
-<p><strong>read about the tools you're going to be using</strong></p>
+<p><strong>ask good questions</strong></p>
 <ul>
-<li>if you're not sure, ask for reading material and where to find internal docs about them</li>
-<li>listening to talks about similar projects in other companies or how your team functions in other companies is also very helpful</li>
+<li>make sure to google your question before you ask<ul>
+<li>if you didn't find anything, ask and mention what you found when googling </li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li>anything else i have to say is <a class="blue-link" href="https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/">said</a> <a class="blue-link" href="https://jvns.ca/blog/2021/10/21/how-to-get-useful-answers-to-your-questions/">better</a> by julia evans</li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li>
+<p><strong>if you find something annoying, see if you can quickly automate it</strong></p>
+<ul>
+<li>bash is your friend</li>
+<li>if you can't do it quickly, ask your mentor if it's worthwhile to automate it so other people can use your script</li>
 </ul>
 </li>
 <li>
@@ -153,6 +170,8 @@ <h2>some lessons from my internships</h2>
 </ul>
 </li>
 </ol>
+<hr>
+<p>note: i have never done a swe internship. make of that what you will.</p>
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